Make My Heart Come All Undone
by nicalyse
Summary: He knew he liked Quinn before. She's beautiful and sweet, and he was completely enamored with her. Now that he knows her just a little bit, he's sort of dying to spend more time with her. AU. This follows "Just To See You Go By."
1. Chapter 1

"So how was the date?"

It's the first thing that Matt asks on Monday morning when Mike gets to the cafe. It isn't really a surprise since Matt spent most of Friday afternoon badgering Mike for details about what he had planned for his first date with 'skim latte, no foam.'

Quinn. Her name is Quinn Fabray. It's just that he spent months thinking of her in terms of her drink order before he knew her name, and old habits are hard to break, especially when he's at the cafe. Mike's known her drink order for months. He's only known her name for a couple of weeks, since he ran into her at the grocery store and fumbled his way through the first conversation they had that wasn't mostly about espresso.

Mike just grins, grabbing his apron - the one with the glitter-embellished felt snowflake pinned to the strap - from where it's hanging behind the break room door. "It was good," he answers.

He thinks Matt can tell that he's understating the truth, but the guy doesn't ask any more questions right then, stepping over to the oven when the timer goes off for whatever pastry he put in before Mike arrived. Mike leaves him to it, heading up front to finish getting setup ready so they can open, practically dancing through the cafe as he pulls the chairs down off the tables and sets up the cream and sugar bar.

The date was more than good.

Going back to the offer he'd given her the first time they'd talked outside of the cafe, he invited Quinn over to his place for dinner. He made cornbread and chili from an old roommate's recipe, and they sat at the table in his kitchen talking long after they'd finished eating. After months of only knowing her coffee order and that she's an elementary school teacher, it was amazing to actually have a conversation with her, to listen to her talk about what prompted her to go to school in LA and about teaching and her students. He told her about dancing, how it's always been the thing that he did that made him happier than anything else and about the classes that he teaches at his buddy's studio.

He walked her out to her car when she said something about imposing on him, which he knew was the 'hey, I'm not sleeping with you tonight' signal. Not that he needed one. Maybe it's old-fashioned (he's certainly gotten shit for it before), but Mike doesn't have sex on the first date if he wants to have a second. He's not going to lie and say that he's never had a one-night stand, but he isn't one of these guys who uses girls that way. Especially not girls that he likes. (Plus, in his experience, sex really is better when you actually _know_ the person you're getting naked and sweaty with.) Instead, he just gave Quinn a hug, kissed her cheek, and said good night.

He knew he liked Quinn before. She's beautiful and sweet, and he was completely enamored with her. Now that he knows her just a little bit, he's sort of dying to spend more time with her.

And yeah, at least a little bit of Mike's good mood this morning is because he knows he's going to get to see her when she comes in for her coffee, even if it's just for a few minutes.

He's just poured a breakfast blend for a guy in a suit when Quinn walks through the door. He shoots her a quick smile while he fits the plastic lid on the cup, then focuses his attention on the customer in front of him so he can get rid of the guy as quickly as possible.

"Hi," Quinn greets when she steps up to the register. She has her hair swept away from her face and a little smile on her lips.

"Hi," Mike answers, trying to keep his own smile from getting too wide and goofy looking.

"Hi," Matt interjects, grinning wickedly and hitting the button to steam the milk for Quinn's latte when they both look at him.

Quinn chuckles, and Mike shakes his head when Matt deliberately squalls the milk with the steam. There isn't anyone waiting behind her, so Mike leans his elbow against the edge of the register and asks, "How are you?"

"Good," she answers. "I got a lot of work done this weekend, and I had a date with a really great guy on Friday night."

Mike feels his smile edging into goofy territory and tries to rein it in. "Yeah?" She nods, blinking her pretty eyes at him. "You think you're gonna see him again?"

She nods again and tries to hand him money for her drink, which he waves off. "I'm going to call him after school and see if he'll go to this thing with me later this week."

"Sounds like a plan." Mike ignores the was his heartbeat quickens. He doesn't know what this 'thing' she's talking about it, but he doesn't care even a little bit.

"Do you think he'll say yes?"

Matt sets Quinn's drink down on the counter between them then, thankfully keeping his mouth shut when he does it.

"I think a guy'd have to be stupid to say no to a date with you," Mike answers, making Quinn smile again. "Your latte's on me today."

"Just for today," she says, raising one eyebrow just slightly. It's an expression that reminds him that she's a teacher, and he concedes with a nod. "Thank you, Mike. Matt," she adds, nodding in his direction before meeting Mike's eyes again. "Bye."

They both watch her walk out of the cafe, leaving them mostly alone there behind the counter. "Has she always been that damn cute?" Matt asks, shrugging when Mike shoots him a look. "I knew she was pretty, but that was like, adorable."

Mike agrees, but he doesn't get a chance to say anything else before the door swings open and a group of three people comes in.

* * *

Quinn told him that she wouldn't take it personally if he didn't want to go with her to the first grade music recital at her elementary school. He said yes though, because he wants to spend time with her, and there are worse things in the world than listening to a bunch of seven-year-olds butchering songs. She'd laughed and joked that he might change his mind after he had to sit through it, but he thinks that he got points with her for agreeing to go so easily. He can't explain why, but he thinks that earning those points is important with Quinn.

Mike picks her up at her house, and he decides as soon as he parks his car at the curb that it suits her. It's light gray with white trim and a cute little front porch. A pair of neatly trimmed bushes that he doesn't recognize flank the porch steps, and finds himself thinking that Quinn seems like the sort of girl who plants flowers every year.

"You look really pretty," Mike says quietly when they're walking into her school's auditorium.

She glances up at him. "This is what I looked like when you saw me this morning."

"I know." He smiles when she raises her eyebrows. "You looked pretty then, too, but there were too many people around to tell you." The cafe was busy when she stopped in this morning, but if telling her that she looked pretty would have meant getting the smile that she offers him now, maybe he won't worry about who's around from now on.

The recital is almost exactly what Mike expected it to be: A huge group of kids singing songs that only about half of them seem to know the lyrics to, and only a handful of whom sound like they can carry a tune. They're cuter than he expected though. Little girls in dresses are always adorable, but he's surprised by how cute little boys wearing ties are.

Quinn laughs in the car on the way back to her house when he tells her that. "Boys in ties never stop being cute," she says quietly, glancing not-so-subtly down at the tie that Mike is wearing.

He tries to keep the grin off his face, but he fails pretty hard.

"If you're interested," Quinn says when he pulls to a stop at the curb in front of her house, "I have something for dessert inside. And you should know that that isn't a euphemism," she adds before he can say anything.

"I didn't think it was," he says honestly, meeting her eyes through the dim light coming from the streetlamp. "But yeah, I'm interested in dessert."

If he had to describe Quinn's kitchen in one word, it would be cheerful. The walls are painted a buttery yellow, the same color as the tiles that form the backsplash behind the stove and countertops, and if there's any clutter in this room, it's hidden behind the white cabinet doors. There are a few pieces of flatware and a single coffee mug - white, with multi-colored polka dots - in the draining rack next to the empty sink, a clean white tea towel hangs from the handle of the oven door, and the windowsill above the sink is lined with little pots of bright green herbs.

He watches Quinn produce two cupcakes from a cake saver sitting beside the coffeemaker, placing each on a small white plate. "I have lots of sprinkles and things if you want to decorate them," she says, looking almost shy.

"Isn't it like, a rule that you have to decorate a cupcake before it can be eaten?" She smiles, then bends to pull an plastic organizer bin from the cabinet. It's filled with containers of sprinkles and jimmies and colored sugars, nearly overflowing even though they're carefully organized. "Whoa. How often do you bake these?" he asks, poking through some of the bottles.

"A lot, actually," she answers, selecting some multi-colored sprinkles that are shaped like flowers. "Not all of my students come from homes where they can afford to celebrate birthdays very extravagantly. I think everyone deserves to feel a little special on their birthday, so I take cupcakes for everyone." Mike chooses a bottle of sprinkles without looking, keeping his eyes on Quinn as she talks. "I have twenty-two kids this year, so I'll have made cupcakes twenty-two times by June."

"What about kids with summer birthdays?"

"I make a calendar at the beginning of the year with everyone's birthday on it, and then I fill in any big gaps with summer kids."

"That's really cool, Quinn." Mike thinsk it's a a great teacher who cares that much about her students.

The smile on her lips gets wider when she looks at his cupcake. "Feeling patriotic?" she asks, and he realizes that the sprinkles he chose were red, white, and blue. He just shrugs and picks up the cupcake, peeling back the edge of the paper wrapper carefully so he can take a bite. "Thank you for coming with me tonight," she says, swiping a finger through the frosting on top of her own cupcake and licking it off thoughtfully. It's sexy, though he doesn't think that she's doing it to tease him.

"It was kind of fun," he admits. "Little kids are cute."

"They're less cute when they're tattling because Alex stuck out his tongue at Laney and she told him that he has a stupid face."

Mike grins. "What do you do about stuff like that?"

"Tell them to keep their tongues in their mouths and their comments to themselves," she answers with a shrug. "I don't have much patience for that sort of thing."

"I don't think I'd have the patience to be a teacher at all," he tells her before pushing the last of the cupcake into his mouth. He's a dude, so he can eat a cupcake in about three bites, and it's good enough that he can't really help how fast he eats it.

She finishes chewing her own bite with a thoughtful look on her face. "I love it. More than I thought I would, honestly. I majored in education because I didn't know what else to do, and I was dreading my student teaching when I started doing it." She shrugs one shoulder. "I fell in love with it."

It's silly, and probably a weird time for it to come up, but all Mike can think is that he's pretty sure he could fall in love with her. He keeps it to himself though, asking her to tell him more about her students instead.

"Thanks for the cupcake," he says when she walks him to the door a little later.

She nods, reaching up to smooth her hand over the front of his jacket. "I'm glad you liked it."

"Quinn." He watches her face when she looks up at him, her eyes soft and her lips just slightly parted. "Can I-"

She rises up onto her toes and presses her lips to his before he can ask permission, her fingers clutching at the fabric that she just smoothed. Mike hears himself make a surprised noise, but it only takes a second for him to get over his surprise and sink into it, one hand coming up to thread gently into her hair while the other rests at her waist, steadying. Her lips are soft and taste faintly sweet from the cupcake that she ate, and he shivers when the fingertips of her free hand brush against the side of his neck.

She takes his bottom lip between both of hers, sucking gently for the briefest of seconds before pulling away. The only thing that stops him from saying something - what, he has no idea - is that she presses her lips against his chastely one last time before inhaling shakily, leaning her forehead against his. "_Oh_," she breathes out, making him tighten the grip he has on her waist.

He stands there for just a moment, breathing with her, before taking a step back, untangling his fingers gently from her hair when she looks up at him. "Good night, Quinn."

He smiles to himself the entire drive home.

* * *

Every time Mike talks to Quinn, he learns something new about her.

It sounds stupid, because of course he's learning new things about this girl who he just started really talking to a little over a month ago, but it's how he feels. It's been a while since he dated someone, frankly, and even longer since he dated someone who he hadn't heard about from the friend who set them up or who wasn't already a friend before they decided to try making it into something more. He hasn't gotten to know someone like this since college.

He knows that he's showing her new things about himself all the time, too. There's always the chance that he's going to reveal something that scares her off, inevitably something that he think is innocuous that's some crazy, quirky dealbreaker for her, but he figures it's worth the risk. He's not shy, exactly, but he's always been a quiet guy, and Quinn is surprisingly easy to talk to.

"Did your parents really want you to be a doctor?" she asks one night when they're talking on the phone. They do this a lot, which makes him feel a little like he's back in high school. He likes it though, so he hasn't said anything about it.

"That was the plan until I was a senior in high school."

"What changed?"

"I realized that it didn't matter what they wanted if it meant being miserable for the rest of my life," he answers after a moment. "I'd already applied to Stanford for my mom when I figured that out and started applying to dance schools. She cried when I declined my acceptance."

"That must have been hard."

"Yeah." To this day, it's the only thing that he regrets about the way that things happened. He didn't talk to his dad for nearly two years because of dance, but making his mom cry was worse. She supported his decision, but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt to have her dream for him quashed. "My mom was okay with it once she got used to the idea, and my dad's mostly come around, but they'd totally rather be able to tell their friends about their son the surgeon instead of the dancer."

She lets out a little hum. "Could you have been a surgeon?"

He's not bragging when he answers, "Yes. I'd have hated it though."

He pictures what that life would have been like sometimes. He'd still be finishing up with school, working his ass off and paying his dues and making himself totally crazy. The thing is, he knows that he would have been good at it. There have been a couple of lean moments in his dance career when he's considered that it might have been a better choice, the sure thing that made him miserable.

"What about you?" he asks suddenly, feeling a little weird talking about himself so much.

"What about me?" Quinn responds, laughing a little.

"What did you parents want you to be?"

She's quiet for a moment, and Mike worries that he's managed to screw it up. "I'm twenty-five. Ten years ago, I thought I'd be a wife and a mother by now because that was what my parents expected."

"That's intense."

"It feels like that now, but it didn't then. It was what I wanted." He hears her take a deep breath. "I did a lot of things that went against my parents' expectations. It sounds like you understand a little bit about that."

"For a while, I didn't think my dad was ever going to talk to me again," he says, his way of telling her that he does understand what she's saying.

"I went through that with my dad, too," she says quietly. It hangs there between them for a moment, then she clears her throat. "This conversation took a much more serious turn than I expected."

Mike isn't stupid. He can tell that she's just trying to change the subject, but if there's something that she doesn't want to talk about, he isn't going to push her.

"I think I'm going to see if I can try to keep a planter alive on my balcony again this year," he says, trying to talk about the lightest, least important thing that comes to mind.

"Again?" she repeats. He's probably imagining the grateful tone in her voice.

"I have a black thumb. I've killed every plant I've ever had." He listens to Quinn laugh. "I'm serious. I've killed things you aren't supposed to be able to kill. I killed a cactus once."

"Did you overwater it?"

"Someone gave it to me as a gift, so I took the thing to a nursery and had the lady write out care instructions for me. I watered it only when the instructions said to water it. The thing still died."

It's a totally silly thing to talk about, but he likes the way that Quinn sounds when she laughs and starts suggesting different plants for him to try, so he figures that makes it worth it.


	2. Chapter 2

Quinn walks into the cafe between 7:25 and 7:35 every weekday morning without fail, and Mike still looks forward to it just as much as he did before he knew her name. Now that he doesn't need an excuse to talk to her, he's back to running the espresso machine the majority of the time. (Matt's grateful, and Mike's convinced that if the guy hasn't learned how to work the espresso machine without burning himself after this many years, he isn't ever going to.) It actually makes it easier for him to chat with her for the five or so minutes it takes him to finish whatever he was already working on and make her drink. He's been making lattes for long enough that he can do it on auto-pilot.

Even though he's busy when Quinn comes in on Thursday morning, he makes a point of catching her eye and smiling before he turns to the sink to rinse out the rag he's using to clean the steam wand. He knocks out a large hazelnut latte, a large caramel macchiato, two small Americanos, and an iced mocha before he even reaches for a cup to make Quinn's skim latte, no foam.

"Hey," she greets, stepping up to the bar after the customer in front of her walks away.

He glances at her and smiles. "Hi."

"Are you busy tonight?"

He doesn't even need to think about it. "Nope. What's up?"

"I have cupcakes to bake," she says. "Are you interesting in helping?"

He's quiet for a second, concentrating on pouring the milk into her cup, using a wide spoon to keep the foam he inadvertantly made in the pitcher. "What kind?" he asks, grinning when she bites her lip as if to hold back a smile.

"White cake with vanilla buttercream."

Mike snaps the lid on her cup and hands it to her. "All right."

He hears Quinn call for him to come in when he rings the bell at her house later that evening, and he freezes in the doorway when he sees her standing in the kitchen. It looks like she's measuring flour, standing there at the counter. She's still wearing the pale blue shirtdress that she had on when he saw her this morning, but now she has a pair of fuzzy gray socks on her feet and an orange checked apron tied on over the dress.

"I love the socks," he tells her before he can stop himself.

She shoots him a look over her shoulder. "My feet were cold."

He crosses to where she's standing and leans down to kiss her cheek. "Do you have an apron for me?"

"I do," she answers, grinning wickedly. She rises up onto her toes to kiss his lips quickly. "If you want to wear an apron, I have more."

"Gimme," he says, totally prepared to wear something pink or frilly for the rest of the evening. He kisses her again when she produces a plain blue apron from a drawer, circling his fingers around her wrist to hold her in place for just a moment.

"Whose birthday is tomorrow?" Mike asks when she slides the tins into the oven to bake. She's very sure of herself in the kitchen, moving deliberately, without any hesitation. All he did was sift the dry ingredients and crack some eggs while Quinn did everything else, but he likes keeping her company while she works.

Oh, who is he kidding? He likes her, and he likes being with her regardless of what she's doing.

"Henry Burton," she answers, setting the dirty dishes in the sink and opening the cabinet for another bowl. "We'll be decorating with green sprinkles because green is Henry's favorite color."

Mike realizes that she's making the frosting when she drops half a stick of butter into the bowl. "Do you ask the kids these things, or do you just know?"

"I have them do a 'getting to know you' project at the beginning of the year, and I keep them until summer," she answers, going after the butter with a wooden spoon. "At this point in the year though, I know them well enough that I don't have to look."

"You're just a really good teacher, aren't you, Miss Fabray?"

Her cheeks go a little pink. "I am," she agrees softly. "That sounds conceited, but I know I am. I work really hard to be a good teacher. I like to be the best."

"It's not conceited. It's...self-awareness." He shrugs when she looks over at him. "I know I'm a good dancer."

"Well, I can't speak to that, but I can confirm that you're an excellent barista," she teases.

"Oo, what an accomplishment," he laughs and leans his hip against the counter. "My father would just love to hear that, Quinn."

"Why haven't I seen you dance?" she asks, ignoring his sarcasm. It's like she's just realized that she's never seen him perform.

"I haven't done any shows since we started...this," he says, gesturing vaguely between them. They haven't labeled what they're doing, though he supposes most people would call it dating. It's not really important right now.

She lets go of the handle of her spoon and turns to face him. "Can I come to the next one?" she asks, stepping closer to him and reaching up to trace her fingertip along the strap of his apron over his collarbone.

He kisses her instead of answering because she's totally adorable right now, looking at him through her lashes and smelling like vanilla and powdered sugar. He figures she's smart enough to figure out that he'd like it if she came to a show he was dancing in.

* * *

He really did invite Quinn over to watch this movie with him, but her fingers toying with the hair at the nape of his neck while she traces her tongue along his bottom lip is infinitely better than watching Mila Kunis flirt with that guy from _The Office_.

Besides, she started it.

She hasn't said it in so many words, but Mike can tell that Quinn loves kissing. The thing is, he's been with girls who loved sex and saw kissing as little more than a means to an end, and he dated a girl once who was pretty inexperienced and therefore insecure about a lot of the physical stuff for a long time. Quinn is totally sure of what she's doing - totally aware of the fact that she makes him half-crazy, he's convinced - but as hot as this is, he can tell that she's not trying to make it lead somewhere. This is making out for the sake of making out, the kind of kissing that Mike hasn't done a lot of (sober, at least) since high school.

He has buddies who'd give him shit for it, but he's really into doing this with her.

He curves his hand around the side of her neck when she moves to straddle his thighs, and she makes a little humming noise when he strokes his thumb over the skin just behind her ear, shifting her hips forward against his. He slides his free hand up her thigh over her jeans, his fingers digging in just a little when she strokes her tongue against the roof of his mouth. He can feel her smile when she pulls back a bit to nip at his lips. He loves her like this, all playful and teasing and hotter than he thinks she realizes that she is.

She practically melts against him when he sinks his hand into the back of her hair so he can kiss her the way he wants, gentle at first and deepening it slowly. He slides his other hand around to the small of her back, slipping it beneath the back of her shirt just so he can feel her skin, smooth and warm and so soft against his palm.

"Mike," she almost gasps, pulling back. He chases her lips, leaning forward and kissing her again until she puts both of her hands on his shoulders and pushes him back against the couch. "Wait."

His mind feels a little fuzzy when he opens his eyes to look at her, and her pink cheeks and swollen lips don't do much to clear things up. But she said wait, so he waits, struggling to keep his eyes open when she scratches her fingernails gently over his shoulders through his shirt.

"I want to take this slow," she finally says, not quite meeting his eyes. "I just...I've rushed into things before, letting things go too far, too fast, and it always ends badly." She swallows thickly. "I really like you. I don't want to mess this up with sex."

"Okay," Mike says easily. He wasn't looking at this as a casual thing. Not at all. Fuck, he's basically been in love with her since before he even knew her name. He leans forward to kiss her lightly. "I really like you, too, Quinn." The words feel a little silly, like he's thirteen years old again, walking home from school with his first girlfriend, but then Quinn is feathering kisses up his jaw and breathing out a_ thank you_ against his ear before tugging lightly at his earlobe with her teeth.

He might go crazy in the meantime, but he's willing to wait for as long as she needs.

* * *

"Are you any good at trivia?" Quinn asks Mike out of the blue one afternoon. They're at a nursery, and he's pulling the red wagon in which she's placing all of the plants that she's buying to take home. It's a little difficult for him to imagine her on her knees with dirt under her fingernails, but she told him that she's done this every spring since she moved into the house she's in now. (He likes that he was right.) She said it was something that she did with her mom when she was little, and he thinks it's cute that she's still doing it all these years later.

"Like _Jeopardy_?"

She chooses a cell pack of flowers that remind him of brains, except they're bright orange. "Like a bar trivia night, where you play in teams."

Mike shrugs. He hasn't ever done anything like that. "I know a lot of random stuff," he offers.

Quinn turns away from the table of petunias - those he recognizes - and giggles. "That's pretty much the point," she says, stepping close and setting her hands on his shoulders. "Tomorrow is trivia night at Wilde's, and I'm on a team with a couple of friends. You should come play."

There's isn't anyone nearby, so he puts his hands on her hips and pulls her closer. "Yeah?" She nods, tipping her head back the way he's learned she does when she wants a kiss. He obliges her, brushing one of his thumbs over her hipbone through the denim skirt she's wearing. "You can't hold it against me if I suck though."

She pecks his lips and turns away from him, moving to another table of flowers that he doesn't recognize. "No promises, Mike."

Wilde's is a pretty standard pub with some Irish-style influences. A carefully lettered chalkboard behind the bar lists the forty-seven beers they have on tap year-round, while a second board shows a selection of seasonal specialties. The place seems pretty chill, with music coming from a digital jukebox in one corner and a couple of waitresses in fitted red tee shirts running around.

Quinn leads him through a doorway into the back room that's way more chaotic than the main bar. The space is smaller, but there are more people crammed in back here, and most are milling around, chatting like they're all old friends. It's crowded, sure, but Mike decides that he likes the atmosphere, even if he is a little nervous about meeting Quinn's friends.

They haven't done this yet. They still haven't put a name on what they're doing, so it probably makes sense, but other than Matt at the cafe and a couple of random teachers at the music recital at her school, neither of them has introduced the other to any of their friends. Mike knows that he's a pretty likeable guy, and even though he was shy when he was younger, he hasn't ever had a hard time making friends. He still wants to make sure that he makes a good impression on Quinn's friends though.

Quinn holds his hand when she leads him across the room, stopping at a table where two guys and a girl are already sitting. "Hi!" she greets brightly, leaning down to kiss the top of the blonde guy's head. Mike pulls out her chair so she can sit while she says, "Everybody, this is Mike." They're all three watching him, not Quinn, when he takes the last chair, between her and the other girl. "Mike, this is Mercedes, Sam, and Artie," she introduces, pointing at each of the guys when she introduces them. Sam is the blonde, and Artie is wearing dark-rimmed glasses.

"I've heard a lot about you," Mercedes says, looking at him appraisingly.

"I haven't," Sam offers, but he's looking at Quinn, not Mike. She rolls her eyes, and Sam takes Mike's hand when he holds it out across the table for the guy to shake.

"It's nice to meet you," Mike says, giving Artie a nod when he shakes his hand.

Mercedes is the music teacher at Quinn's school, and she rolls her eyes when he mentions that he was at the first-graders' recital. "Those kids are about ninety percent hopeless as singers," she laughs. "They have fun though, and they're cute." She shrugs her shoulders and grins, and Mike decides that he likes her. He can tell, even that quickly, why Quinn does.

Artie's a PA on a sitcom that's been pretty popular since it first began a year ago, and a friend of Quinn's from college. "I'm the reason Q has swag," he says, making Quinn shake her head. "No, really," he says, looking at Mike seriously. "That girl was all prim and proper before she met me."

The waitress interrupts before Quinn can respond. Sam orders for the table - chips and salsa, green bean fries, a pitcher of Blue Moon, and a Sprite - before looking expectantly at Mike. "Sprite's fine," he tells the waitress. He knows that most people wouldn't have a problem with having one beer and then driving home, but Mike doesn't roll that way. Even if it's just a beer, he thinks drinking and driving is irresponsible.

"How do you two know each other?" he asks Sam after the waitress has gone. The guy rolls his eyes as soon as Quinn opens her mouth.

"Sam dated my freshman roommate," she says, smirking across the table at her friend. "She was mean, and Sam liked it."

"It wasn't like that," Sam insists, shooting Quinn a glare. "Santana was kind of mean, but that wasn't why we were together."

"That doesn't mean that you don't get off on being with a bossy woman," Quinn laughs.

"Whatever." Sam pushes a slip of paper and a yellow pencil across the table at her. "Go sign us in."

Mike learns two things going to trivia night with Quinn. First, he's really good at trivia. Years of being a straight-A student combined with a huge interest in pop culture has made him sort of perfect for this kind of thing. Second, Quinn's friends are great, and they're really protective of her.

Quinn volunteers to take their pitcher to the bar for a refill (their waitress is running her ass off, but they're all impatient), and as soon as she's out of earshot, Mercedes turns and levels him with a look.

"If you mess with that girl, I will mess you up," she says lowly. "You feel me?"

Mike nods. He doesn't know what that means, exactly, but he doesn't have any intention of messing with Quinn, at least not in the way that Mercedes means.

Apparently satisfied with that answer, Mercedes picks up her nearly-empty glass and takes another sip.

"Look," Sam says, looking at Mike seriously. "Quinn doesn't date much, and she has a history of dating guys who are real jackasses. It's been a long time since she's spent as much time with a guy as she has with you."

"We just don't want to see her get hurt," Artie adds, speaking just loudly enough that Mike can hear him over the rest of the people in the room.

Sam seems to be the one who's the most serious about this, so Mike looks him in the eye when he says, "I really like her, okay?" He doesn't have any intention of hurting her, but he'd like to think that most of the time, people don't get into relationships seeking to hurt the other person's feelings, so it feels like a hollow thing to say. "I think she's...amazing," he says. It doesn't seem like a good enough word. "I don't know what else to tell you."

"Good enough for me," Artie says, holding out his fist for Mike to bump.

"They liked you."

Quinn says it in the car when he's driving her back to her house. She's been checking her phone, and he assumes that at least one of them has been texting her. She leans her head back against the seat and looks at him when he slows at a stop light. "I like you, too."

He grins. She isn't drunk, but she is a little tipsy. It's the first time that he's seen her drink anything more than a glass of wine with dinner, and she's adorable like this. "You like me?"

She reaches over to take his right hand off the steering wheel, skimming the backs of her fingers over his palm before slipping them between his. "I really do."

He kisses the back of her hand, but the light turns green before he can say anything else, and she's quiet the rest of the way back to her house. It isn't until they're standing on her front porch - of course he walks her to her door - and she's slipped the key in the lock that she says something.

"Do you like me, Mike?" she asks, looking up at him from beneath her eyelashes. She's still holding his hand, and her thumb is sliding back and forth slowly over the inside of his wrist.

He nods, leaning down to kiss her softly. "I really do, Quinn," he breathes against her lips.

She kisses him harder, standing on her toes and pushing her hand into the back of his hair the way she told him she likes to do. (_I love the way your hair feels between my fingers_, she admitted one night when they were watching a movie on her couch.) "Mercedes thinks we're cute together," she says, leaning back against her front door. He brushes her bangs out of her eyes. "I think we're cute together, too."

She's way too adorable right now. "I think you're cute," he tells her. It's not a lie.

She starts giggling then, shaking her head when he asks why. "We're so gross right now," she laughs. "_I think you're cute_," she parrots, biting her lip when he gives her a faux-wounded look. She curves her hand around his jaw and presses herself against him, her head tipped back so she can meet his eyes. "I think you're cute, too, Mike." She presses a kiss to the underside of his jaw. "Good night."

She slips through her door before he has a chance to say anything, leaving him standing alone on her front porch, but he doesn't mind.

* * *

**A/N:** With all of the changes and poorly explained occurrences going on here lately - including deletion of fic - I wanted to take a moment to remind everyone that all of my fic - including some things that aren't here at ffnet - are available at my Live Journal, the link to which seems to have disappeared from my profile. (Another inexplicable change, I assume. Quite simply: nicalyse (dot) livejournal) Anything that I write will always be posted there first.


	3. Chapter 3

They go to Barnes and Noble one night after dinner to pick up a picture book that Quinn ordered for school. Mike reads before bed most nights, and he likes bookstores, so he's more than happy to tag along.

"I hate James Patterson," Quinn comments when they're looking at the bestsellers at the front of the store.

Mike doesn't even look up from the Malcolm Gladwell book he's looking at. "He doesn't write most of his own books."

"That's part of why I hate him."

He lowers the book in his hands and looks at her. "You give me more reasons to like you every day."

She tilts her head and smiles, then leans forward to kiss his cheek. "I'll be in the kids' section."

He watches the sway of her hips when she walks away. He can't really help himself.

* * *

"What's this?"

Mike glances up from the grocery bag he's unpacking to see Quinn standing in front of his fridge, peering at a postcard hanging there. "It's one of the decorative panels on the inside of a carousel," he answers. It's a close-up, so it's hard to tell exactly what all the shiny stuff in the picture really is, but Mike thinks the colors are great.

"Matt took this?" she asks, her voice laced with disbelief. She's examining the back of the card when he looks back at her. "Matt's a photographer?"

"I thought you knew that," Mike says, folding up the reusable cotton bag and sliding it into the drawer with the others. Quinn shakes her head. "That's the announcement for his exhibit. A bunch of his stuff is being shown at a gallery downtown, and he's doing an opening and everything."

She looks more closely at the card in her hand. "This is next Friday." The expression on her face is almost stern when she says, "We have to go to this."

He was already planning on asking her if she wanted to go with him, but it's better this way.

She wears a simple white dress for the exhibition, dressed up with a pair of red high heels that Mike immediately falls in love with. Her only jewelry is a pair of sparkly stud earrings - diamonds, he assumes - and a gold filigree bracelet, and her hair falls in soft waves over her nearly-bare shoulders. It's just proof of how gorgeous she is, that she can do so little and still be the most beautiful woman in the room. And maybe he's a little biased, given that he's half in love with her, but he's pretty sure that she is the most beautiful girl here when he looks around.

Quinn sips a glass of white wine while they walk around the hall of the gallery where Matt's photos are being displayed, her heels tapping on the industrial-chic concrete floor, not bothering to talk to anyone else unless it's someone who Mike happens to know. She slips her fingers between his while they wander from photo to photo, making up stories about each and talking about their favorites. They don't like all the same things, which makes for more interesting conversation. Matt's photos are all about perspective, about the angles and the way the light plays on whatever the subject is. All photos are like that, of course, but there's something different about the way that Matt sees things, about the things that he chooses to frame.

"What do you think?" Matt asks when he finds them among the crowd.

Mike pulls him into a loose hug, patting his back once. "I think this is the best show you've done," he tells him. Not only are the photos beautiful, Mike's pretty sure this is the best turnout that Matt's ever had for an opening.

"Thanks, man."

Quinn puts her hands on his shoulders and leans forward to kiss his cheek. "I had no idea you could do this," he hears her murmur before she pulls back to look at him seriously. "This is amazing."

"Thanks, Quinn," Matt says simply, but Mike's known him for long enough to be able to see how much her comments mean.

"I really like the one of the girl," she goes on. "I love that you can't see her face, and you can't even tell what she's looking at."

"I could tell you," Matt offers.

She shakes her head emphatically. "Not knowing is part of the appeal."

Matt grins. "Are you sure you wanna be with this guy?" he asks, jerking his head in Mike's direction. "'Cause I'll totally treat you right if you want to go in a different direction."

Quinn laughs softly. "I'm pretty happy with the boyfriend I have now," she says, then leans in conspiratorially, "but I'll let you know if that changes."

It's the first time that either of them have used the word, and the way that Quinn slips her hand into his again lets him know that she's just as aware of it as he is.

Matt heaves a dramatic sigh and looks at Mike. "Lucky bastard," he grumbles.

Mike doesn't disagree.

Mike gets out of the car when they get back to her house later because a gentleman walks a girl to her door at the end of a date. It doesn't matter who she is or what kind of relationship you have or even how the night went, you walk a girl to the door.

Quinn steps close to him when they get onto the porch, her heels making her tall enough that she just barely has to lean up to kiss him. "I love the way you look in a tie," she tells him, smoothing her hand over the gray silk.

"Thanks."

She kisses him again, just a brush of her lips against his, teasing. "I want you to stay," she murmurs. She feathers little kisses along his jaw until she can whisper, "Stay with me tonight," against his ear.

She's doing that really distracting thing with her teeth on his earlobe, but he pulls back to look down at her. "Quinn, you don't have-"

"I want to," she interrupts, locking eyes with him. "I want you."

The words make something tingle at the base of his spine. He's been fine with the slow thing; it's kind of nice, actually, having some mystery still there, even if it makes him half-crazy sometimes. But he loves Quinn - he's falling _in_ love with Quinn - and he wants to have this with her. He forces himself to keep his hands resting lightly on her hips when he asks, "You're sure?"

His heart sinks when she pulls away from him, slipping her keys out of her bag to unlock the front door. The little part of his brain that's ruled by his libido curses the nice guy part that asked the question, but he wants to be sure that this what Quinn wants. He hasn't ever pressured a girl into having sex with him, and he isn't going to start now, not at all, and especially not with this girl.

But then she's circling her fingers around his wrist and pulling him through the open door with her, watching him with as sexy a look as he's ever seen in her eyes.

"Wait," he says when she starts to lead him down the hall, presumably to her bedroom.

"What?" she asks when he tugs her toward the couch in the living room. He kisses her gently instead of answering, curving his hand around her cheek and guiding her to sit with him. "Mike-"

"Shh." He sips at her lips, sinking his hand into her hair and feeling the way the strands slip between his fingers. "I just want to kiss you for a while," he whispers against her mouth, and he knows this is the right thing to do when he feels some of the tension go out of her body.

Quinn told him once, in passing, that her last relationship ended over a year ago. Mike was smart enough to pick up on what she was telling him: Quinn hasn't had sex in over a year. It's not something that she takes lightly, and Mike respects that. Since she's waited this long, he thinks that he owes it to her to make it worthwhile.

He lets her set the pace, following her lead when she straddles his thighs, carding her fingers through his hair and kissing him slow and deep. It feels different than usual when she strokes her tongue along his, he thinks because he knows that this is leading somewhere different than it ever has before.

She tugs at the knot in his tie when he kisses the side of her neck, loosening it and undoing the first couple of buttons of his shirt even as he sucks gently at her pulse point. "Mike," she breathes, slipping her hand under the collar of his shirt so she can curl her fingers into his shoulder. "I want..." He scrapes his teeth gently over the hinge of her jaw, then brushes his lips against it. Her fingernails bite into his skin, her hips shifting subtly against his. "Please."

He tips his head back so he can look up at her. "Please what?" he asks.

She takes a shaky breath and blinks her dark, lidded eyes at him, then climbs out of his lap, holding his gaze. "Come to bed with me," she says, her voice just loud enough for him to hear.

Mike makes it his mission to touch every inch of her skin when it's exposed, listening carefully to every little gasp of breath, every moan, every whimper that escapes from her throat. He keeps his eyes locked with hers when he sinks into her for the first time, struggling against the urge to close them and just feel, to revel in how warm and _tight_ she is around him.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes," she answers, her voice tight, but he waits until the death grip she has on his biceps loosens to draw his hips back, watching her eyelashes flutter when he slides back in slowly. "_Yes_."

She keens out his name when she falls apart, and Mike presses his face against her neck when he stops holding back and lets himself trip over the edge with her.

The gentle scrape of her fingernails against the back of his neck starts to bring him back into himself, prompts him to kiss her gently even though they're both still catching their breath. "Oh, my god," she murmurs, whining against his lips when he pulls out. "That was-"

"Perfect," he interrupts, kissing her again.

* * *

Mike wakes in Quinn's bed the next morning with her lips against his forehead and the scent of coffee in the air. "Good morning," she says quietly when he blinks his eyes open, squinting a little against the light seeping in around the edges of her curtains. "Coffee?"

He lets out a little hum and pushes himself upright to take the mug she offers, watching her over the rim when he takes a sip. She's wearing pale blue slip of a nightgown and has woven her hair into a messy braid over one shoulder. "You look really pretty," he says without thinking. It's true though, and the hint of pink that colors her cheeks even as she rolls her eyes at him makes it more true.

"Is it okay?" she asks, nodding toward his coffee cup.

"Really good," he says.

"I thought it was about time I make coffee for you," she says. He can tell she's trying not to smile. "Even the score a little."

He's careful not to spill his coffee on her pretty white duvet when he leans forward to kiss her. They get a little carried away, but it's okay. The way Mike sees it, they have some catching up to do.

* * *

When Mike was still in college in New York, he was part of a crew of guys who danced, most of whom were doing all of the stuff that they weren't able to do in their school-sanctioned classes. A lot of it was about mashing styles together and performing wherever they could get on stage, though there were a few members of the group who were legitimate street dancers who either freestyled or performed in styles that weren't really accepted by any of the big, mainstream dance organizations. With one notable exception, most of his best friends were in that crew, and they were like a family. One of the hardest things about deciding to leave New York for Los Angeles was leaving them behind.

So when he gets a call from one of the guys who used to pretty much be in charge, Tadd, who says that he and some of the guys he's dancing with now are going to be doing a show in LA and asks if Mike's interested in being part of it, he doesn't even have to consider his answer.

Rehearsals are intense, learning a lot of choreography in not a lot of time, and he pays for it with all sorts of aching muscles. Sure, Mike works out, and he's been teaching dance a few days a week forever, but it's not at all the same as preparing for a performance. The evenings that he's gotten used to spending with Quinn are mostly spent in rehearsals, and by Saturday night - a week out from the performance - he's really missing her on top of feeling like every muscle in his body is staging a revolt against his treatment of them.

When she shows up at his door with a six-pack and and a pizza, he has to stop himself from letting the words_ I love you_ trip off his tongue.

(He would mean it. He does love her, But telling her he loves her for bringing him alcohol and food doesn't really express the sentiment the way he wants.)

He ends up stretched out on his stomach on his bed with his shirt off while Quinn sits back on his thighs to massage his back. For a girl with such long, delicate fingers, she has strong hands, and the massage is simultaneously borderline-painful and relaxing.

"I've watched videos of you on YouTube," she admits out of nowhere. He'd like to look at her face, but she has him basically pinned to the bed.

"Yeah?"

"A while back, actually." Mike grins to himself. "You're amazing, you know that? I can't imagine being able to do something like that."

"I can't imagine not doing it," he says quietly. Quinn's fingers have stopped kneading at his muscles, and now she's just smoothing her hands over his skin, almost like she's trying to lull him to sleep. "Even when it was behind closed doors, I was dancing."

"I don't think I've ever felt that way about something," she says, sounding almost sad. Mike reaches back to catch one of her hands in his, tugging gently until he can feel her leaned over his back. He presses a kiss to her palm and doesn't say anything else.

* * *

He's in bed with Quinn, lying on his side and trailing the pads of his fingers up and down her spine, watching her body rise and fall with each breath. He loves being like this with her; it's the second-best thing that came out of introducing sex into the relationship. (Second only to the obvious.) She's pretty like this, all sleepy and mussed, and he likes looking at her.

"You know," she says, blinking her eyes open at him, "if this goes bad, I'm going to have to start drinking Starbucks coffee again."

He snorts out a laugh, the palm of his hand flattening between her shoulder blades. "You could buy an espresso machine."

She shakes her head against the pillow. "It's so complicated."

"Your drink is not complicated," he insists. She shrugs one shoulder. "Come on," he says, climbing out of bed and stepping into his boxers. He tosses the tee shirt he was wearing earlier to her and walks out of his room without waiting for her.

He's already tamping the grounds into the basket of his espresso machine when Quinn steps into the kitchen. "What are you doing?" she asks.

"Teaching you how to make a skim latte with no foam," he answers, glancing over at her. God, she looks good in his white tee shirt and nothing else.

"Mike! It's twelve-thirty," she laughs, watching him pull the milk from the fridge. "We'll be up all night."

He raises one eyebrow and looks at her, grinning at the blush that stains her cheeks and the part of her chest that's exposed by his shirt. She just shakes her head and nudges him with her elbow when he steps past her to get to the sink.

"You ready?" he asks. She nods and steps closer, leaning one hip against the counter and watching him turn on the machine. "The espresso part is easy. You make sure you tamp down the grounds, then you just turn to knob." He's basically on auto-pilot as he talks her through steaming the milk, distracted by how how close she's gotten to him, close enough that his arm brushes against her breast as he moves. He really wants to pull his shirt over her head, lift her up onto the counter, and have his way with her right here. He's pretty sure, judging by the little smirk on Quinn's lips, that she's aware of what she's doing to him, so he resists the urge.

"Got it?" he asks when he's pouring the milk into a mug along with the espresso. She nods and lets out a little hum of agreement that sounds way too sexy for what they're doing. He pulls out the basket, juggling the hot metal a little while he dumps the spent grounds into the trash can under the sink. "Let's see it then."

However distracted Mike was when he was showing her how to do it, Quinn must have been paying attention, because other than making a bit more foam than she really likes and making the milk squall once (she'd grimaced and corrected quickly), she makes herself a perfect latte.

"It tastes better when you make it," she says after taking a little sip. Mike takes a drink of each latte, and other than the one he made being a little cooler, they taste the same. She shakes her head when he tells her that. "It's never as good when you have to do it for yourself."

He shakes his head, laughing when she takes the latte that he made and takes another drink. "I though you were worried about being up all night?"

She sets the mug on the counter, licking her lips and shrugging one shoulder. "Maybe it wouldn't be so terrible. We don't have to work tomorrow. You'd keep me company, right?" He just watches her when she steps forward and grazes her fingernails over his abs, stopping just above the waistband of his boxers. "I'm sure we could find something to occupy ourselves."

He resists the urge to put his hands on her. "Mmm. What did you have in mind?"

She looks up at him from beneath her lashes, then tips her head back and slips just the tips of her fingers beneath the elastic of his shorts. "Mike."

He just watches her, waiting until she pushes up onto her toes to kiss him to slip his arm around her waist. He feels like she's been teasing him the entire time they've been in the kitchen, so he doesn't put his tongue in her mouth or slide his hand beneath the shirt that she's wearing. He simply kisses her, smiling against her mouth when she makes an impatient noise. "You're a tease," she accuses, speaking between kisses.

Mike chuckles. "Yeah. I'm the tease."

Quinn leans back and stares up at him for a moment, then takes a step back. Mike watches her grab the hem of his tee shirt and pull it over her head, leaving her naked and pretty much perfect in his kitchen. She pushes the shirt into his hands and and turns away, walking out of the room without another word.

Mike catches her before she even makes it to the bedroom, pinning her against the wall in the hallway and kissing her until she's pushing his boxers down off his hips and mumbling something about the bedroom against his lips.

They don't make it.

* * *

Quinn is crazy busy as the school year comes to a close, finishing end-of-year projects and getting grades together and organizing her classroom, something she says she likes to do at the end of the year instead of waiting until the beginning of the next. She'll have two weeks off, then she's doing summer school half a day for the next four weeks. Neither of them has any big summer plans, but Mike is going out on another tour in November, so he's looking forward to just being able to spend some more time with her.

When she tells him that she's going back to Ohio for a week after school ends, he's admittedly a little disappointed.

"I go every year," she says by way of explanation when she tells him, not even looking up from her computer. She's transferring grades from her handwritten gradebook to the one online, sitting on the floor between her couch and her coffee table.

"I didn't think you were close to your parents." He's not upset, and it's not like he expects her to stay, he just doesn't get it.

"I'm not," she says easily. "I go back twice a year, every year." She turns to look up at him. "It's just what I do."

"Okay." He leans down to kiss the top of her head. He convinces her that he should stay with her that night even though they both have to work in the morning, and he combs his fingers through her hair until she falls asleep.

He goes to her school on the last day, waiting until after all of the students are gone so he doesn't have to worry about checking in as a visitor at the office. He knows that she plans to stay late and then go straight to the airport from there to catch her flight back to Ohio, and he wants to be able to see her before she goes.

Mike's been in her classroom once before, for just a few minutes when they were here at school for that music recital back when they first started dating. He doesn't even remember what she got off of her desk that night, but he does remember how to get to her classroom, helped by a sign declaring that he's in the third grade hallway and a bright handmade banner over her door that reads _Welcome to Miss Fabray's Class!_

She's at her desk, sitting on the edge of her chair, pulling things out of an open drawer and tossing them into the nearby trash can. "Hey," he greets quietly, hoping not to startle her.

She looks up and smiles brightly. "What are you doing here?"

He holds out the cup from the cafe he has in his hand. "I thought you might like one more before you head out."

She takes the cup and stands, tipping her head back to kiss him gently. "Thank you."

"I really just wanted to see you one more time before you go," he admits. He feels a little silly for it, but Quinn just smiles over the top of her cup and takes his hand, slipping her fingers between his. He perches on the edge of her desk when she sits back in her chair, leaning back a bit and taking another sip of her latte. "How was the last day?"

"Loud," she laughs. "I'm going to miss those kids," she says softly, meeting his eyes. "I always do."

He tilts his head, rubbing his thumb back and forth lightly against the space between her thumb and forefinger when he sees the tears that have welled up in her eyes. "I love you." Her lips part when she inhales slowly. "I just...I do."

She sets her cup on her desk when she stands up, stepping between his legs and putting her hand on his cheek when she leans in to kiss him gently. He knows then that she isn't going to say it back, but that's okay. Mike isn't the guy who says or does things to get something in return; he told her he loves her because he does, regardless of what she feels for him. If she isn't there yet, that's fine.

He's not worried about messing things up between them. They're good.

He sits with her for a while, watching her finish cleaning out her desk and listening to her tell stories about her students, names that he's gotten used to hearing over the last few months and he thinks he might miss hearing about.

"I'll call you," Quinn says when he's leaving a little later. She closed the door so she could give him what she called _a proper kiss goodbye_, and now they're just standing together, with his hands on her waist and hers resting flat against his chest.

He nods, leaning down to press another quick kiss to her lips. "Have a good trip."

She smiles and holds his hand even when he steps away, not letting go until they're too far apart to keep touching.

* * *

"So when does Quinn get back from Oklahoma?" Matt asks. They're at their favorite sports bar, eating wings and drinking beer and half-watching the Royals fail at playing good baseball.

"Ohio," Mike corrects. "Her flight gets in on Friday night." They've been texting every day, and he's talked to her twice, but he's totally ready for her to be back in California.

"Are you going to do the cheesy thing where you meet her at the gate and declare your love for her?" Matt teases. Mike just shakes his head. "Seriously?"

"We're not like that."

"Bullshit."

"Seriously," Mike laughs, tossing a crumpled napkin in Matt's direction. "She drove herself to the airport, dude."

"So you're just a bad boyfriend." Matt shrugs and changes the subject, but it bugs Mike for the rest of the night.

He's a little drunk when Matt drops him off, which is precisely why he calls Quinn and asks, "You don't think I'm a bad boyfriend, do you?"

"What?" she laughs. She's still laughing when he finishes telling her what Matt said. "No, Mike. You aren't a bad boyfriend."

"That's a relief," he says, letting his head drop back against the back of the couch.

"It sounds like you need to drink some water and sleep it off," she suggests gently.

"Probably," he agrees easily. "Are you having fun at home?"

She's quiet for a moment, then finally says, "This isn't home. This is just the place I grew up. The place where I made all of my mistakes." The words make him feel less drunk than he did even thirty seconds ago.

"Quinn-"

"It's fine," she interrupts before he can say anything else. "I'll be back in two days. Maybe then I can get some decent coffee. Everything here is terrible."

"Yeah?" He doesn't really know how to respond to the way she's changing the subject. It's pretty obvious to him, even drunk, that she doesn't really like being at home. He doesn't understand why she's there at all if that's the case.

They talk for just a few more minutes, during which she asks him about what he's been up to and doesn't say anything else about what she's been doing while she's been at home and why she sounded so down on it. Mike doesn't know what to make of it, but there isn't anything he can do when she's in another state. He figures he'll listen if she wants to talk about it when she comes back, but otherwise, he's at a loss.

He does drink a glass of water that Quinn suggested, along with some microwave popcorn that he eats while he watches a show about Pompeii on the History Channel.

* * *

Mike knew that Quinn was planning to come by his place when she got back into the city, but he's really surprised when he pulls his front door open on Friday night and sees her standing there with tears on her cheeks.

"Quinn, what's wrong?" he asks after he's ushered her into the apartment. She closes her eyes and shakes her head. "Quinn."

"I don't want to talk about it," she says coldly. Her tears but just a hint of a waver in her voice. "Will you just-" She cuts herself off with a sniffle. "Will you lie with me? Can we just go to bed?"

He needs to know what this is about, because it's freaking him out not a little, but he also wants to give her whatever she needs, so he nods. Her body visibly relaxes, her shoulders slumping a little, and she drops her purse onto the bench by his door and slips her feet out of her sandals.

She doesn't even pause to take off her jeans before she crawls into his bed, so he follows suit, pressing his chest against her back and pulling her close. He tightens his grip when she clutches at his hand, and her breathing is all messed up from the way that she's crying.

"Quinn," he whispers after he's stayed quiet for as long as he can stand. "Baby, I need you to tell me what's wrong." Her body trembles when she inhales, and his heart breaks for her, whatever is making her feel this way. "You're scaring me," he admits, hoping that it will make her explain something.

"I just really hate being back there," she finally manages. Her voice is so quiet that he can just barely hear it. "Everything in Lima reminds me of how much I screwed up." He presses his lips against her hair but doesn't say anything. "Can we just sleep? Please?"

He's not totally sure that she's capable of falling asleep with the way that she's still crying, but he just says, "Yeah," and pulls her closer, doing his best to wrap her up in his arms completely.

Mike hates listening to her cry. Her body shakes, and she takes these gasping breaths that he can tell she's trying to suppress; she sounds so broken that he aches for her. He has a million questions about what she just told him, but now isn't the time to ask them. He's hoping that she'll feel better in the morning after she's gotten some rest and a little distance. Maybe then she'll be able to talk about it and deal with whatever it is that had her showing up at his door in tears.

She finally does fall asleep, her breathing evening out for the first time since she got to his place and the sobs no longer wracking her body. Mike finally feels like he can breathe a sigh of relief, and so he lets himself drift off.

* * *

He wakes up in bed alone.

That's not so weird. They don't spend the night together that often in the first place, and when they do, he has to be at work at the cafe earlier than Quinn has to be at school. He's up before her on weekdays, but on weekends, he tends to sleep in while she gets up at the same time that she always does. She'll get up and make coffee, and he usually finds her in the kitchen making breakfast or sitting in the living room reading a book and half-watching _Good Morning America_ or whatever.

He feels grungy after sleeping in his jeans all night, but he ignores the feeling and goes looking for Quinn, scrubbing his hand over his face and hoping that she's already made a pot of coffee so he can have caffeine within the next ten minutes.

She's sitting right in the middle of his couch in the living room, her shoes on her feet and her purse on her lap. Her hair is in a ponytail and she's washed the tear stains off her cheeks, but otherwise, she looks a lot like she did last night when he opened the door for her. "Hey."

"I'm sorry about last night," Quinn says, looking up but not quite meeting his eyes.

"It's fine," Mike says. He has an uncomfortable twisting sensation in his stomach.

"It really isn't," she says quietly. Her voice sounds different than he's ever heard, almost like she's reciting something that was written by someone else. "Mike, I don't think this is working."

"What?"

"This relationship. It isn't working for me any more."

"What are you talking about?" Maybe they haven't been together for very long, but he thinks their relationship has been pretty good so far.

"I'm breaking up with you."

"_Why?_" She's quiet, looking up at him with unreadable eyes. He doesn't know what the hell is going on here, but he's pretty sure it has something to do with the way she showed up here last night. "Quinn, what was last night about?"

She squeezes her eyes shut and takes a breath. "I had a baby when I was sixteen," she all but blurts out. "I gave her up for adoption to a family who lives in the town closest to where I grew up. I go back and see her twice a year."

"Quinn-"

"It happened," she interrupts, "because I let myself get caught up in something." She finally looks up and meets his eyes for real. "Just like I've been doing with you."

He thought that listening to her cry last night broke his heart for her, but hearing this makes him so incredibly sad, both for the woman she is now and for the girl she was then. He wants to gather her up in his arms again, but she's sitting there looking like her spine is made of steel, holding her straight and rigid, and wrapped in glass, that she would shatter if he tried to touch her.

"This can't be anything like that was," he says before he can stop himself. Her eyes narrow. "I don't know anything about that, but Quinn, you're twenty-five, not sixteen."

"I know that," she answer softly. "I really do." She swallows hard. "But I'm still done doing this with you. Please leave me alone."

He could probably say something else when she stands up and walks to the door, but he can't. Even if he could, he doesn't think that it would do any good.

He just lets her go, closing his eyes when he hears the front door close behind her.


	4. Chapter 4

Knowing about Quinn's past - even just the tiny bit that she was willing to tell him - makes a few of the things that she's said and done in the few months that they were together make a lot of sense. Specifically, the way that she wanted to wait to have sex. He understands, as well as he figures any guy can, that what she went through means that she takes sex seriously. Some of the seemingly offhanded comments she's made about making mistakes and disappointing her parents suddenly take on a whole new meaning.

He does the math and realizes that if she had a baby when she was sixteen, that child is around nine years old, the same age as the kids in Quinn's class. If she's still visiting this girl twice a year, she must have some relationship with her, some attachment, and seeing all of those kids every day...

God, he wishes that she would have talked to him about this instead of doing what she did.

* * *

Mike doesn't really want to talk about what happened. He just wants to go to work, do his job, and go home. While other guys might decide to get wasted or talk shit about the girl or whatever, Mike's prone to wallowing in his misery.

He has a little bit of hope that she'll show up at the cafe on Monday to tell him something, anything. But when Mike takes his first break and Quinn hasn't shown up for her skim latte, no foam, Matt asks about her.

"Pretty sure she isn't coming," Mike says, staring at the door and willing someone - anyone - to walk in and end this conversation.

"I thought she was supposed to get back on Friday."

It never fails. When you're trying to finish something or have a conversation someone, that's when someone has to come in and order something. When you're bored and doing nothing - or desperately trying to avoid talking about getting dumped - there isn't a customer in sight.

"She did," Mike answers.

Matt doesn't have anything else to do, so he leans against the back counter and looks at Mike. "What happened?"

Mike shrugs his shoulders, turning back to the front counter and wiping it with a damp cloth even though it's already clean. "She came over and told me that we were done. I don't know why," he lies. What happened in Quinn's past isn't any of Matt's business, and even if it was, Mike doesn't know how he would go about explaining that she broke up with him because she had a baby almost ten years ago. He can't make much sense of it for himself, let alone for someone else.

"That sucks, man," Matt says sincerely. "I know you really liked her."

Saying that Mike liked her implies that he used to like her, in the past, instead of still liking her today. Which he does. Hell, he loves the girl, and really wishes that she would talk to him about this. But she told him to leave her alone, so unless she comes to him, that isn't going to happen.

"Yeah."

* * *

Even though it's been weeks since Quinn dumped him, Mike is depressed.

Not clinically, seriously depressed, but depressed like a guy who got dumped by the girl he's in love with. Even grocery shopping, which is usually one of his favorite things to do, does nothing to pull him out of his funk. If anything, it makes it worse, because he can't help thinking about the day when he first learned her name, when she smiled at him instead of being totally freaked out by how awkward he was.

He's totally that guy. He'd be embarrassed if anyone else knew, but he's certainly not going to tell.

When he gets a call from Tadd asking if Mike would be interested in dancing in the music video he's choreographing for some Disney pop kid who's trying to get out from under her good girl image, he doesn't even think before he says yes. It's filming over three days in New York, but Mike figures a week back in the city that he called home for four years - a week away from all the stuff that's making him think of Quinn - sounds pretty good.

Mike ignores the knowing look he gets from Matt when he's telling Jackson, the cafe owner, about his plans at work the next morning. It's easy enough to get someone to cover the classes he's scheduled to teach at the dance studio. He's crashing on Tadd's sofa bed, so all he has to do is book a flight and pack.

Being back in New York does feel a lot like coming home. There's just something about this city that's different than any other, something that he never realizes he misses until he's back and feels it all over again. He drops his stuff at Tadd's place - the guy's at work, but Mike still has the key on his ring from when he lived here almost five years ago; it's kind of insane when he thinks about it - and heads straight to the pizza place down the block.

It's nice, he thinks when he's walking through his old neighborhood, to be away from some of the things that remind him of Quinn.

Then he turns the corner and sees a children's bookstore where there used to a big and tall men's clothing shop and that goes all to hell.

He's too busy with rehearsal and filming to really think about it, honestly, which is a blessing. It's nice to have three days of nothing to think about but the music and the movement and, at one point, how to make it look like he's touching this singer in borderline-inappropriate ways without actually being inappropriate. (Why he was chosen to be that guy is beyond him, but they get it figured out in a way that doesn't make him feel like he's a creeper.) He's too tired when he gets back to Tadd's place to do much besides pull out the sofa bed he's sleeping on and pass out.

The day after he finishes shooting on the music video, he meets Rachel for a late lunch. She nearly knocks him down when she launches herself at him outside of the restaurant, laughing against his shoulder as he struggles to keep them both upright and off their asses on the sidewalk.

Mike met Rachel Berry at a party during his freshman year of college, and they've been friends ever since. Well, if you don't count the brief detour their friendship took when they tried dating, broke up, and didn't talk for the entire summer after their sophomore year when she went to spend the summer back home. They don't talk all that often, but they make a point of seeing each other whenever they're in the same city, and when they hang out, it's always like the last time they were together was yesterday. She's the kind of girl you don't realize that you miss until you're hanging out with her, then you wish that she was around all the time.

She's also stupidly easy to talk to, because when she says, "Tell me what's new with you," he opens his big mouth and tells her all about Quinn. He tells her everything, from all that time when she was coming in the cafe and he didn't know her name to the way she broke up with him. He even tells Rachel about the baby thing, because it's not like she's ever going to meet Quinn, and maybe she can help him make sense of what that has to do with him.

"I just don't know what I did," he finishes, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. Rachel has already put her fork down and is just sitting there, watching him and listening to him talk about this girl.

"Unless you're omitting details to make yourself look better," Rachel says softly, "I don't think that you did." Mike blinks at her. "Sometimes, 'it's not you, it's me,' isn't just a bullshit excuse. Maybe going home dredged up issues for her, and then she connected them to you."

"That sucks."

Rachel laughs. "We all do it to some extent. We go into new relationships with baggage from the old ones, and the new person we're with is forced to deal with them along with us." She picks up her fork and takes a bite, chewing thoughtfully. "Maybe she'll come around."

Mike sighs, looking out the window beside them at the street for a moment before turning back to Rachel. "There isn't anything I could do about it even if she hadn't told me to leave her alone, is there?"

"I don't think so," she answers softly, looking sad when she says it.

He feels a little bit better about the whole thing having talked about it, however weird that is. It still feels like shit, frankly, but at least he's gotten it all out in the open a little. It's like now that he's said it all aloud and had someone else tell him that he didn't do anything wrong with Quinn, maybe he'll be able to start getting over her.

* * *

"Quinn started coming in again last week."

It's the first thing Matt says when Mike gets to the cafe on his first morning back after his New York trip, before he's even gotten the back door closed behind him.

It's too early for his heart to do this flipping thing in chest.

"Okay."

Matt's eye widen slightly. "Okay?" Mike shrugs, going to grab an apron off the hook on the wall. "Dude, you've been moping around because of her for like, a month, and 'okay?'"

"New York was good, thanks," Mike says sarcastically, turning to face Matt when he slips his apron over his head. "I think the video's going to be good too, but no, I don't know when it's going to be released yet." Matt rolls his eyes. "Look, Quinn told me to leave her alone. If she's coming here again, it's just about coffee."

He leaves Matt standing there shaking his head, walking out into the front of the cafe and pulling chairs down off the tables even though there are a bunch of things he should do first. He just needs for Matt not to be looking at him like he's supposed to be doing or saying something about the fact that Quinn has started coming back to the cafe. Because however much Mike would like it if it meant that she wanted him back in her life, he can't let himself think like that.

It's about skim lattes, no foam. It isn't about him.

He's not trying to watch the door, but he looks up every time it opens, which means that he sees Quinn the second she comes in. She's wearing a cerulean blue dress with a brown leather belt, and her hair is straight and a few inches shorter than it was when he saw her last. The only thing in her hands is her wallet, just like always, and he can see that she's painted her nails the color of coral. She's so, so pretty.

He takes it all in in a glance, then turns his attention back to the dry whole milk cappuccino he's making.

"Hey, Quinn," Matt greets when she gets up to the register, holding out his hand for her money without even telling her the price. He never does.

"Hi, Matt." Mike makes the mistake of looking up at her when he reaches for the cup to make her latte, and she catches his eye. "Did you have a good trip?"

"I did," he answers simply, ignoring the way his heart is pounding. "Thanks."

She says _thank you_ with a polite smile when he hands her her drink, then turns and walks away leaving Mike to make two large Americanos while he tries to stop thinking about how green her eyes look when she does her eye makeup like that.

* * *

Quinn told Mike to leave her alone, and Mike respects that. Even though she's coming to the cafe every morning again, he's not initiating conversation with her, however much he wants to ask her about how summer school is going and whether or not she ever tried that strawberry cupcake recipe that she'd been so excited about not long before everything fell apart. Matt makes some comment about regression and history repeating, but Mike pretends that he doesn't hear it and keeps his eyes on the pitcher of milk he's steaming instead of watching Quinn walk out the front door of the cafe.

Matt isn't entirely wrong though. It feels a lot like six months ago, when he was still so sure that he was going to stumble over his words that he was half-afraid to talk to her. He's anticipating seeing her every day just like he did then, though he thinks he's hiding it better this time around.

He's not so sure about history repeating though. Their conversations are brief and polite and nothing more. She isn't flirting with him or even really acting like they know each other at all. It's almost impressive, the way that she can be so casual and impersonal with someone she's had sex with.

Mike just follows her lead.

He's in the back Thursday morning after the rush ends, pulling a tray of double-chocolate chip cookies from the oven when Matt calls his name. He sets the tray on the cooling rack (which isn't the way it's supposed to be done, but whatever) and heads back out front.

He's a little surprised when he sees Quinn's friend Sam standing there at the counter.

"Hey," he greets simply, ignoring the questioning look he gets from Matt when he steps up to the counter. "What's up?"

"I wanted to talk to you," Sam says, cutting right to the chase. "Can you take a break or something?"

He makes Sam an iced Americano and pours a raspberry lemonade for himself, then they step outside onto the front patio to sit at a table in the sunshine.

"Quinn screwed up," Sam says without preamble, and Mike's glad that he wasn't trying to take a drink. He might have choked. "She was like, totally falling for you, and she screwed up when she broke up with you."

Mike doesn't say anything. He wouldn't know what to say. He thinks Sam is working towards something here though, so he just waits, taking a quick sip of his lemonade.

"She's been in this funk ever since, and I finally got her to admit that it's because she shouldn't have dumped you."

Mike doesn't know how he's supposed to feel about that. Maybe there are guys who would feel vindicated or something, knowing that the girl who dumped him feels like shit about it, but Mike doesn't want Quinn to feel bad.

"I don't know what you want me to say, man," he admits to Sam. "She told me to leave her alone, and that's what I've been doing."

Sam takes a sip of his drink and nods. "Yeah, that was another screw up." Mike grins in spite of himself and watches Sam lean forward a little. "Look, I don't want to get in the middle of anything, but I hate seeing her mope around because she's too proud or stupid or whatever to admit that she messed up and wants you back." He sighs and picks up his drink, shaking it gently so the ice rattles against the inside of the cup. "Quinn doesn't want you to leave her alone."

"But she sai-"

Sam cuts him off. "She started coming back here, right?"

Sam obviously already knows the answers, so Mike doesn't say anything. He does, however, wonder what exactly Quinn has said about it.

Sam pushes his chair back away from the table, the wrought iron scraping against the sidewalk loudly. "I'm not going to tell her that I came here, so if you choose not to do anything, that's your deal," he says, looking at Mike seriously. He lets the words hang there for a minute, then nods his head and turns to walk to his car, leaving Mike sitting there.

"What was that about?" Matt asks when Mike comes back into the cafe.

Mike doesn't feel like making up some stupid story, so he just says, "Quinn," while he pulls his apron back over his head and ignores all of Matt's probing questions that don't end for the rest of the afternoon.

* * *

"I'm going to work register," Mike tells Matt the next morning just before they open the front door. Matt blinks once and nods, and Mike busies himself with choosing which color of Sharpie he wants to use this morning so he doesn't have to see the looks Matt's giving him from his place behind the espresso machine.

He reaches for a small cup as soon as he sees Quinn walk through the front door, marking it - skim latte, no foam - with his orange Sharpie even though Matt knows what she drinks just as well as he does. "Good morning," he greets simply when the guy in front of her in line finishes ordering and she steps up to the counter.

She smiles softly, handing him the exact change to pay for her latte. "Good morning."

"How's summer school going?" he asks, keeping his expression as neutral as possible as he sorts the change she handed him into the appropriate compartments in the register. There isn't anyone in line behind her, so he isn't holding anyone up.

"Really good," she answers. "I have thirteen kids, and my main focus is reading comprehension."

"One more week, right?"

He sees the way her eyes soften. "Right."

Matt doesn't say anything when he finishes making her drink, just slips the little cardboard sleeve on it and slides it across the counter to her with a nod. "Well," Mike says, watching her pick it up. "Have a good day."

"Thank you." She looks almost like she wants to say something else, but instead she turns and walks to the door, holding it open for the woman who comes in just as Quinn is going out.

Matt nudges him once she's gone but doesn't say anything. Mike is still grinning when the new customer gets to the counter to place her order.

* * *

As much as Mike hated it when Matt brought it up, the next week and a half is like history repeating itself. Even though he knows her name now, he and Quinn are interacting with one another the same way that they did back when he first noticed her, when he had that stupid crush on her and wanted to get to know her but didn't really know how to go about doing it. This time around, he knows her better, so he has a little more to work with, but it's a lot of the same stuff.

On Monday, he asks her if she had a good weekend. When she says yes, he asks how the team fared at trivia on Sunday night, and she's smiling when she tells him about the hula hoop question that no other team got correct.

On Tuesday, he mentions the release of a movie that's based on a book that he knows she's read. She says she's torn, because she wants to see it, but films based on books are almost always disappointing. Mike agrees, and they throw out a couple of titles - _Fight Club, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Marley and Me_ - that didn't live up to expectations while Matt prepares her latte. (Mike can tell that Matt's moving at about a quarter of his usual speed, and he loves the dude for it.)

On Wednesday, she comments on his color of Sharpie - breast cancer pink, 'cause why not? - and gives him one of those pretty, teasing smiles that he loves so much on her.

On Thursday, they're too busy for Mike to be able to do much more than say hello and tell her to have a good day, which he sort of hates. Tomorrow is her last day of summer school, and after that, there's really no guarantee that she'll keep coming in. And yes, that's stupid, because her showing up hasn't ever been a certainty, but at least there's a routine that she keeps to when she's teaching. He doesn't have any idea what she does with her days when she's on summer vacation.

It's hot outside, hot enough that the air conditioning is having a hard time keeping up, and with the door opening and closing so many times in the last half-hour, it's nearly eighty degrees in the cafe. Mike's standing at the sink at the back counter later Thursday afternoon, rinsing out the steaming pitchers that got thrown back there during their last rush. Matt's leaning against the front counter, flipping through an issue of _Restaurant_ magazine that he stole off Jackson's desk.

Mike suppresses a groan when he hears the front door open, the sound of glass displacing the air quiet but unmistakable for someone who hears it as many times a day as he does.

He nearly drops the last metal pitcher he's rinsing when Matt says, "Hey, Quinn."

Her hair is up in a ponytail, which it wasn't this morning, and she's clutching at the edge of the counter. "Hi," she says, looking at Mike even though he wasn't the one who greeted her.

"I'm gonna go bake something," Matt says. It's a lie, because there isn't anything that needs to be baked right now, and even if there was, they wouldn't do it when it's this hot. Quinn doesn't know that though, and Mike appreciates that he's leaving them alone.

"Well, speaking of baking," Quinn says, "I'm going to be baking some cupcakes tonight for our end of summer school party tomorrow. I was wondering if maybe you would come and help."

His palms are sweating. If anyone asked, he'd blame it on the heat. "Yeah?" She nods, biting the corner of her bottom lip. "Yeah. Okay."

A slow smiles spreads across her lips. "Okay. Great." She takes a step back from the counter. "I'll see you later, then."

"Bye, Quinn."

He resists the urge to jump up in the air and do a Judd Nelson-style fist pump, but he does do a little moonwalk through the swinging door into the back where he knows Matt has been eavesdropping.

* * *

Mike rings the bell when he gets to Quinn's house later that evening and smiles to himself when she calls out a _come in_ from inside.

She's standing at the counter in the kitchen, chopping strawberries in a yellow apron with ruffles on the edges and bare feet. "It's a new recipe," she says, turning to look at him over her shoulder. He crosses to stand beside her, leaning his hip against the counter. "The frosting is supposed to be made with vanilla bean, but that feels like kind of a waste on a bunch of ten-year-olds."

He just grins at her, watching when she scoops the chopped berries into a little bowl and reaches to set the board in the sink. "I still think it's cool that you do stuff like this at all," he tells her. The recipe is lying there on the counter, so after a quick glance, he grabs another bowl and the canister of flour, measuring and sifting like he has every time that he's baked with her.

She keeps her eyes trained on the bowl in front of her where she's pouring sugar over the butter that she's already measured. "I had a daughter," she says quietly. "She's nine. Just like my students." She takes a slow, deep breath. "When I went to see her, her father was there, too. Her biological father."

He can tell that this is hard for her to say, and the way that she's beating the butter and sugar together with a wooden spoon and not meeting his eyes highlights her discomfort in an odd way.

"I was a cheerleader and the celibacy club president. My father and I were planning to go to a purity ball." She drops the spoon and drags the back of her hand across her forehead. "I cheated on my boyfriend, and I ended up pregnant."

"Quinn-"

"It was because of the way that he made me feel," she interrupts before Mike has a chance to say anything. She's still staring down into the bowl in front of her. "I was popular, and I was a daddy's girl, but no one made me feel the way that he did. Like I was the only girl in the room, the only girl that he wanted to be with." She looks up at him finally, and her eyes are sad. "You make me feel like that.

"Seeing him brought all of that back up, and I panicked. It's not the same. You and him," she whispers, her eyes full of tears. "It isn't the same at all, and I realize that now. I'm sorry I pushed you away."

He gathers her into his arms when he sees the first tear slip down her cheek, holding her close against him. "You don't need to apologize."

"I really do," she mumbles against his chest. He pushes her away a little, holding onto her upper arms.

"You really don't," he says firmly, locking eyes with her. She nods, leaning into him again, wrapping her arms around his waist and holding him tight. It feels amazing, having her in his arms again, and if he wasn't afraid that it would somehow scare her off, he'd tell her that he loves her. Instead, he pushes her away again, gently, and says, "I thought we had cupcakes to bake."

She nods, glancing down at his lips before rising up onto her toes to kiss him gently, her fingers curling just a little bit into his tee shirt at his side. "Okay," she breathes, turning back to the counter. "Cupcakes."

They have plenty to talk about while they work. Mike tells her about his New York trip, and Quinn is full of stories from summer school. It's almost exactly like it was before, with Mike sitting on a stool beside the counter while Quinn pipes frosting onto the tops of her cupcakes and they both chat. She gets really excited when he tells her about the music video because she's secretly a fan of the bubblegum pop singer, and he has to lean over and kiss her temple when she's telling a story about one of her students and the guinea pig that one of the other teachers convinced her to house in her classroom for a couple of weeks.

He watches Quinn carefully place the cupcakes into the special carrier she has and snap the lid on top. She pauses for a moment with her hands there on the top of it, then turns to face him. "Can I ask you something?" Mike nods. "Did you mean it when you said you loved me, or did you just say it because I was leaving?"

He can feel the incredulous look on his face when he says, "Of course I meant it." She blinks, and he steps forward to put his hands on her shoulders. "I meant it," he repeats emphatically. "I do love you."

Her eyes close even though her face is tipped up toward his, and she takes a shaky breath before opening them again. "I'm not ready to say that," she whispers.

Mike looks down at her and realizes that the waver in her voice and what he's seeing in her eyes...it's fear. She's afraid, and whether it's because she's afraid that he loves her or afraid that he expects her to love him or afraid of how he's going to react to her admission, the idea of her being afraid right now, when he's telling her he loves her, breaks his heart.

"It's okay," he tells her, speaking softly and looking her straight in the eye. "You don't have to say or feel it. Love doesn't come with expectations, Quinn."

A sound that might be a sob comes out of her throat, but before Mike can decipher it, Quinn is kissing him, her fingers threading into his hair and her hips pressing forward against his. It's automatic, the way his arms go around her, his fingers grasping at the back of her shirt when she licks at the seam of his lips.

He's not going to lie and say that he hasn't missed this part of being with Quinn, but he's surprised when she starts walking backwards in the direction of her bedroom, tugging at the front of his shirt with one hand and untying her apron with the other so that it falls to the floor between them and Mike's feet nearly get caught up in the fabric. He tried not to come here tonight with any expectations for what was going to happen, but even if he had, this wouldn't have been one of them. He wasn't even sure that her invitation was an indication of anything more than her willingness to be friends, but her hands are slipping up beneath his tee shirt, warm and sure against his skin.

She breaks the kiss to pull his shirt up over his head. "Quinn, wait," he forces out when her hands drop to his belt buckle. She blinks up at him, though her hands don't stop moving, which makes it really difficult for him to say, "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Her hands still, though she doesn't remove them from his belt. It's distracting. "It's not like before," she says, and he thinks she means the first time that they slept together. "I'm sure." She leans up to kiss him again, gently this time, just her lips moving with his until he slips his hand into her hair and she opens her mouth under his.

There's nothing like the way that Quinn gasps his name when he slips into her or the way that her back arches and her fingers clutch at his shoulders when she falls apart, and he nearly thanks her for letting him experience that again when he's in a post-orgasmic stupor. Fortunately, he suggests that they try one of those cupcakes that she made instead, a stroke of genius that affords him the opportunity to kiss frosting off the corner of her mouth.

* * *

"You're in a good mood," Matt comments when Mike practically dances into the cafe the next morning. "I guess last night with Quinn went well."

"Yeah," Mike answers simply. Matt doesn't need to know that he only got a couple of hours of sleep before he woke up beside a naked, gorgeous woman.

He's back behind the espresso machine when Quinn comes in that morning, smiling as soon as she's through the door. He catches her eye when she's standing there in line, shooting her a little wink that makes her cheeks go all pink, almost the same color as the skirt that she's wearing.

"Could I have a medium?" she asks as soon as she's up to the counter, an effort to stop Mike from starting her drink in the small cup that he's already reached for.

"Really?" Matt asks, beating Mike to the punch. "I've been taking your order for like, a year, and you always drink smalls."

She shrugs one delicate shoulder and looks down into her wallet. "I could use the extra caffeine today. I was up all night," she explains, glancing at the display on the register and handing Matt a five-dollar bill.

Mike bites down hard on the inside of his cheek and stares down into the pitcher of milk he's steaming to keep from grinning at her, especially when Matt shoots him a pointed look. There isn't time for Matt to pump either of them for information right then - not that he'd get it, now or later - since there's a line, and once he's handed Quinn her change, he's forced to help the next customer without further comment.

Quinn is standing there at the bar when Mike finishes her drink, and since he's just waiting for espresso for an Americano, it's easy to step over where he can put it in her hand. "Skim latte, no foam."

She smiles, and Mike loves the little sparkle he sees in her eye. "Thank you, Mike."


End file.
